Moving to Opportunity (MTO) is a
major randomized housing mobility experiment sponsored by the U.S. Department
of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Starting in 1994, MTO provided 4,600
low-income families with children living in public housing within some of the
nationís most disadvantaged urban neighborhoods the chance to move to
private-market housing in much less distressed communities.† Families were randomly assigned to one of
three groups: a group offered a housing voucher that could only be used to
move to a low-poverty neighborhood, a group offered a traditional Section 8
housing voucher, and a control group.

From 2008 to 2010, MTO families
were interviewed for the 10-15 year evaluation of the program. The evaluation
focuses on the long term effects of MTO on adults and children, how these
effects evolved over time, and the mechanisms through which these effects
occur. Analysis of the MTO data is ongoing. These data will also be archived
with the Interuniversity Consortium on Political and Social Research (ICPSR)
at the University of Michigan for researchers to access for secondary
analyses.

Data from the 10-15 year follow
up (summarized in a HUD technical report) showed that random assignment to
the two MTO groups offered the chance to move with housing vouchers succeeded
in helping families live in lower-poverty, safer neighborhoods, with some modest
declines in neighborhood racial segregation as well.

Some of the key findings in the
10-15 year MTO data for adults are as follows:

∑MTO improved
physical health: adults offered housing vouchers have a lower prevalence of
severe obesity and diabetes compared to controls (as reported in a 2011
article in the New
England Journal of Medicine). Adults offered housing vouchers also report
fewer physical limitations, but self-reported health status and rates of
hypertension and health-related risk behaviors are similar across groups.

∑MTO improved mental
health in areas such as depression and psychological distress.

∑MTO had little to no
effect on economic self-sufficiency.

Key findings to date for youth
include:

∑MTO had little to no
measured effect on physical health.

∑MTO improved mental
health for females but not for males: Females in the low-poverty voucher
group had lower prevalence of psychological distress, mood disorders, panic
attacks, and oppositional defiant disorder and fewer serious emotional or
behavioral difficulties.

∑MTO had differential
impacts by gender for problem behavior but little impact on arrests.

∑MTO had no
detectable effects on math and reading achievement.

These findings generally echo
those derived from the earlier MTO interim study, which followed families up
4-7 years after random assignment. One important difference is that the
interim data, unlike the long-term data showed large declines in violent-crime
arrest for both male and female youth (as reported in a 2005 article in the
Quarterly Journal of Economics). The interim data also found pronounced
gender differences in how MTO moves affected youth, with female youth
generally benefiting while such moves generally had adverse effects on other
risky behaviors for male youth aside from serious violence (as reported in a
2007 article in Econometrica). These gender differences in MTO effects on
youth outcomes were more muted in the 10-15 year data.

MTO was authorized by Congress
in 1992 and made use of rental assistance vouchers, in combination with
intensive housing search and counseling services, to assist low-income
families to move from some of Americaís most distressed urban
neighborhoods to lower-poverty communities. MTO families were recruited from
high-poverty public housing projects in five participating cities
(Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York)
between 1994 and 1998. Because of the random assignment design, the MTO study
generates comparable groups of adults and children living in different types
of neighborhoods, so that a comparison of outcomes across research groups can
uncover the potential effects of neighborhood characteristics across a range
of family and childrenís outcomes.